Atheism, Evolution, Skepticism

Creationist Brain-Teaser

The YouTube creationist VenomFangX made an interesting argument in one of his videos. He argues that if the universe has always existed, it is infinitely old. If the universe is infinitely old, then an infinite amount of time would have to pass before we existed – therefore, we could not exist because an infinite amount of time has not yet passed.

Normally, I would’ve ignored it, but it’s an interesting little brain teaser. Can anyone find any flaw in that argument? I’ve written my answer below, but you’ll have to scroll down to see it (in case you want to think about this yourself first).

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If his argument is correct, then all infinitely old objects or beings cannot act or be acted upon – because an infinite amount of time would have to pass before they could act or be acted upon. This has two implications:
(a) Infinitely old objects or beings are incapable of affecting or being affected in any way – essentially, they exist in some sort of impervious bubble; permanently in stasis. This contradicts common-sense.
(b) God cannot be infinitely old. If God was infinitely old, then He’d have to wait an infinite amount of time before thinking a thought, creating the universe, or interacting with humankind. But, if God is not infinitely old, then God must be created. Who created the creator? It’s an infinite regress. Thus, his argument against an infinite universe works equally well against God.

Does anyone else see any other flaws?

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3 Responses

I noticed a flaw in that the argument was said to be interesting, which it’s not. Like most fundamentalist Christians, VenomFangX puts forth several precepts that he does not back up with logic or evidence, draws an illogical conclusion from it, ties it to the existence of God and then triumphantly sits back with a wry smirk on his face at the befuddled expression of the poor Atheist who can’t imagine where to begin debunking the pile of naive incoherent short circuiting rhetoric placed before him. At a sweep, the intelligent critic may notice that VenomFangX seems to be blissfully unaware that he is using an eighteenth century textbook, one that supports steady state theory, has no mention of the big bang, fails to state that matter and energy are the same thing, doesn’t even touch quantum theory, and is simplistic and concise enough that it can be printed on a pamphlet which then can be forced upon innocent civilians by crazed religious fanatics, which is funny, because that’s basically what VenomFangX is doing. Prodding further, we see that VenomFangX also never took basic algebra, otherwise he would have known that in a universe that has no beginning an infinite amount of time would have passed an infinite number of times. As someone who claims to worship and infinite god, you’d think he’d understand the mathematics of infinity a little better than he does (or should I say, doesn’t.). But all that should have been obvious. What really frightens me about this video is how sure of himself VenomFangX seems. He actually thinks, that on the first try, with no fact or source checking, and the scientific knowledge of a sixth grader, he has put to shame thousands of years of scientific research, mountains of evidence pointing to the contrary, and the combined intellects of humanity’s smartest, most capable scientists and philosophers. That such a pitiful, nonthreatening argument could be backed with such confidence does not bode well for the future of intelligence and truth, and I would not want to live to see a world where such poorly reasoned simple mindedness held sway over our spirituality, our education, and our government.

By the way, VenomFangX has been taking a beating from Thunderf00t on YouTube. I haven’t seen all Thunderf00t’s responses, but he critiques VenomFangX in the “Why People Laugh at Creationists” series.http://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t

I suppose the larger theme here is the two ways in which people construct a ‘rational’ view of the phenomenal world. The first way, which is usually referred to as science, is to start from a zero point, a state of complete ignorance, from there, one observes the world around oneself, and bit by bit, making observations and challenging preconceived notions, build an increasingly accurate picture of the universe. This would be called knowledge or wisdom. The second way is to choose a world view through emotional or memetic means (that is, a notion or idea created via a Huxlean brave new world repetition motif) and then select, perceive and emphasize only the logic and evidence that supports one’s particular view or idea. This would be called stigma or neurosis.
This raises and interesting problem because although this second way of thinking manifests itself obviously as religious fundamentalism, we are all guilty of this kind of stigma in our phobias and our hang ups towards each other and the world we live in.